The Wheels on the Bus DON'T Go Round and Round

Today, I began the journey to Ban Kong Lor on yet another bus. Before leaving Vientiane, we stopped once for hydrolic fluid, once for gas, and once at a mechanic for something I couldn't get a glimpse of. I should have recognized this omen.

I was relaxing and taking photos out the window of overly packed vehicles and little kids, when suddenly we stopped at the side of the road in a small town. I assumed it was an early lunch stop, but when I hopped off the bus, I was surprised to find we were at a mechanic. It seems we had a flat tire.

Every bus seems to have three bus company personnel: a driver, a ticket taker, and a luggage handler. I never understood why three were needed. I assumed it was some FDR-type work program. But now I understand. You need at least two people to fix a flat tire on a bus.

I know this picture looks morbid, but I assure you this man has not been run over by the bus. He is just trying to get at the tire. I think it may have been an interior tire that blew.

As we waited for the tire (and of course the spare which was also flat) to be repaired, I contemplated my bus. Notice the motorbike on top of the bus. I have no idea how they got it up there or how they intend to get it down. Mind you, these things are all loaded manually.

They repaired the first tube, slipped it into the tire, and a man rolled it away to put it on the bus. Moments later, he returned to report that he heard a leak. The mechanics didn't think to test the tube before shoving it into the tire. They were all standing around waiting for the tube to be repaired again, when the ticket taker made the brilliant suggestion of putting the now-repaired spare tube into a tire and putting that on the bus.

-

While we were waiting for all of this to take place, I realized it must be lunchtime, because streams of kids on bikes began pouring down the streets, heading for home.

After an hour and a half, we were finally on the road again.

So, if we were on the road, you might be wondering why there is now another picture of the bus on the side of the road. Well, only a kilometer down the road, we all heard a loud rushing of air. I guess they didn't quite patch the tire well enough. I couldn't stop laughing; it was absolutely hysterical. This time, they put the spare on, which held for the rest of the trip.

-

We arrived in Ban Na Hin in the early afternoon and I found a sawngthaew to take me to my guesthouse outside Ban Kong Lor. The trip involved an hour's ride down a dirt road in the open air. My driver had warned me that I would need to walk about 1.5 km to my guesthouse, but I could not have imagined what he really meant.

-

As we cruised down the road, I spied a sign for the guesthouse at a dirt road, but he kept driving, eventually stopping on the side of the road by a dry rice patty. He pointed across the field and told me to walk 1.5 km.

-

So, 20 kilo pack on my back, I marched across the rice patties, while stepping carefully to avoid the cow patties. Travel like this makes you stronger in more ways than one.

After my walk, I found myself in a village and had to ask for the guesthouse several times, each time being pointed in the general direction, until I found it.

The "guest house" consisted of little huts with a pair of beds and a small central, concrete building containing toilets and showers. I didn't mind, though -- it felt like camping.

Concrete Jungle

There is a park just outside of Vientiane called Xieng Khuan, which means "spirit city", but is often just called "Buddha Park". It is filled with concrete statues created by supposedly untrained artists under the direction of a religious man that blended Buddhist and Hindu philosophy (which already share some traditions and beliefs.)

Here is a selection of some of my favorites...

The requisite reclining Buddha, of course...

I tried to ask this guy for directions, but he was not very helpful. :)

So, I think I need to explain this one... This is a three-story concrete structure that is lit only by the sunlight entering the windows. You enter through the mouth-shaped doorway, after much crouching. Inside, on each level, you find a hallway around the perimeter, with a single center room filled with statues that are impossible to see in the dark. There are precariously constructed stairs leading up to each level and eventually to the roof.

But the dubious climb rewards you with a view of the park.

At the top, I met a couple from Austria (Rita and Sepp) and a group of young monks. I talked with the monks for about 20 minutes. They think its funny that Westerners always ask if the monks find it difficult to clear their mind for deep meditation. As one of them explained to me, "You cross your legs, breathe through your nose, and clear your mind -- it's not hard at all." I guess we have trouble clearing all of the clutter of our hectic lives from our brains.

At the end of the day, I headed back into Vientiane and visited Pha That Luang, which is the symbol of the city. It was built in the 16th century on the site of a Khmer monastery and, an unlikely legend has it, on top of a stupa containing a piece of the Buddha's breastbone. It was sacked in the 18th and 19th centuries by Siamese and Burmese invaders and rebuilt twice in the early 20th century by the French. (Apparently, they didn't get it right the first time.)

Thoughts of Spring

I was watching the news this morning and they said that it was spring in NY. I have missed my friends and family on this journey, but this is the first time I have missed a time and place. We are well past spring here; it is hot, hazy, and humid summer.

But no worries... I am not homesick yet. I am still having the time of my life. My love to all!

Walk On

I was a little “watted-out”, but I did visit a few of Vientiane’s wats before heading to the riverside, where I found some remnants of Songkran here.



One thing that struck me was the effect of the dry season on the river. In the north, the lack of rain seemed to have little effect on the water level. But, I guess, due to the compounding of low rivers feeding the Mekong, when you get this far down, the difference is dramatic. In the picture below, you can see how little water there is in the riverbed – just a small river in the distance.

After enjoying a stroll along the river, I found myself at Haw Pha Kaeo, which was originally a royal temple used to house the Emerald Buddha, which seems to have travelled in Asia more than Marco Polo. (It is now housed in Bangkok.) The temple had a nice collection of statues inside. It also had a large stone jar on the lawn, which they claimed was an original Plain of Jars vessel, but having seen them myself, I don’t believe it.

My last stop for the day was Patuxai, which is Vientiane’s answer to the Arc de Triomphe. Apparently, the locals sometimes call it the vertical runway because it was built using cement that the US purchased for the construction of a new airport.

This last shot is of the ceiling taken from underneath the arch. I climbed to the top, only to be disappointed that it was basically a ruse to get you into several gift shops.

Vientiane or Bust

I took the bus to Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. Once again, the bus took THE road, which was a two-lane road over the mountains with a curve every 200m. And I use the term “two-lane” very liberally. It was tight enough that most of us would at least slow down if there was a bus coming in the other direction. But these buses were passing one other with cars, motorbikes, pedestrians, and cows coming in the other direction. Oh, and there are no guardrails. (Mom, you would never have survived it.)

Once again, I was able to see some snippets of village life, but was not able to photograph them to share with you, except for this one image when we were stopped. Someone boarding the bus appears to be the most exciting thing that happens in some of these villages and this boarding drew a crowd.

Once we reached Vientiane, I found a sawngthaew to take me into town. (This is basically a very small pick-up truck with a roof over the bed and benches along either side.) But only a minute after leaving the bus station, the sawngthaew ran out of gas. After our driver ran to get some and filled the tank, we needed a push start. So, he flagged down another sawngthaew that then backed up behind us and hit us several times to get us going. It was absolutely hysterical to me, but apparently standard operating procedure here.

Feeling Laos-y

I usually have a cast-iron stomach, so I thought for sure that I would make it through the whole 10-months without getting sick. It was a very optimistic outlook, indeed. I am taking a day out to rest and take some anti-biotics.

So, while I take a nap, you can look at the sunset.

The Plain Truth?

The main purpose of a visit to Phonsavan is to see the Plain of Jars, which is actually spread across multiple sites. It basically consists of fields filled with large, multi-ton, stone jars that are more than a meter tall. On my tour of three of these sites, my tour guide explained that everything I was about to hear was myth and speculation, because no one really knows where they came from, how old they are, or what they were used for.



The local myth says that the majority of the jars were used to hold the remains of cremated bodies and that the smaller ones with lips on the top were used for making wine. My tour guide’s grandparents told him that the jars were all whole prior to the 2nd Indochina War, but some are now damaged. MAG has spent much time clearing this area of landmines, as the plains were the site of many battles.


The belief is that the jars are of three construction methods, as shown in the picture below (clockwise from bottom left): carved from a boulder, quarried from a rock hill, and molded from clay and baked.

Some of the jars had lids, but as you can see, this lid is probably not the original one for this jar.

At the second site, there were several jars that had trees growing out of them. Ah, the power of nature. Given enough time, nature always seems to prevail over the man-made. I guess it is a matter of tenacity.

This was also a great spot for some peaceful views overlooking the fields.

The interesting thing about the third site, other than the walk across the dry rice patties, is a lack of available rock from which to quarry the stone for the jars. This implies that the jars were transported from another site, kilometers away, likely by elephant.

But the best thing about this site was the view...

Our driver [not sure if he was an Aries (joke for Tommy)], who was our tour guide’s father, grew up near the second site, so he took us to see the house he grew up in. We met his parents, who served us fruit and were very welcoming.

At the end of the day, we also stopped to see the empty hull of an old, Russian tank. Everything that could be removed had been sold by locals as scrap metal. If they could find a way to move the heavy hull, I am sure they would have sold that, too.

Watching the World Go By

Today, I parted ways with my new friend and headed out to Phonsavan, which is famous for the mysterious (i.e. no one knows how it happened) Plain of Jars. The bus left Luang Prabang and took the road south. Now, when I say we took the road south, I mean we took THE road south. For more than three hours, we drove over the mountains on a paved road with not a single intersecting road. Villages ran along the road, rather than being set back on their own road. Very strange to my city ways, but the scenery was beautiful.

We were traveling too fast to get many pictures of the villages, but I did manage to snap this shot of a house. Notice the pattern in the woven bamboo walls. The houses all had different patterns.

I also saw a lot of cute kids. There was a pair of boys that couldn’t have been more than two-years old wearing t-shirts, but no pants, holding hands to try to help each other down an embankment. Very cute. And groups of kids playing, while carrying their young siblings in slings on their backs.

It is still Songkran, so there are of course people at the side of the road shooting water at the bus. Several people really soaked us because they sprayed the bus with hoses, but most were kids with SuperSoaker-style water pistols.

Along the way, we passed quite a few men carrying rifles on their backs. It was later explained to me that this was to protect travelers from bands of thieves that used to attack vehicles on these remote roads. This was all the more interesting because of the holiday. We were seeing men with rifles slung over their shoulders protecting the roads outside the villages, juxtaposed with kids carrying water guns in an identical manner, seemingly protecting their village with water.

After a nap, I awoke to find us cruising through pastural hillsides and eventually to fertile plains.

Happy New Year!

When I was in Bangkok, I wrote about the bowls that the monks use to collect alms each morning. Well, now you can see them in action. We got up at 6am to watch the monks from all the various temples in town processing through the streets to collect their food for the day. You can see the black bowl inside an orange sling at their side. The faithful place food into the bowls, being careful not to touch the monks themselves, as women and monks are not allowed to touch.

Afterwards, we once again ventured out onto the Mekong, this time to visit the Pak Ou caves, which are filled with Buddha statues.

On the way, we stopped at a village where the residents make whiskey and weave textiles. Here is a woman working at the loom. You can see the variety of fabrics at the stall behind her.

And here is a bottle of Lao whiskey, which, for some reason, always seems to have something scary-looking in it. And here are a few little girls who we saw on the river. (There are so many cute kids here.)

This was a particularly appropriate time to visit the caves because it is the first day of the Lao New Year (Songkran). During this time, there are several traditions, including the washing of Buddha images, the results of which can bee seen in this photo. (Sorry for the bad lighting – it was a completely dark cave.)

Another tradition is the creation of sand stupas for good luck.

But the most well-known and most fun part of Songkran is the water festival, which involves people dousing one another with water for several days. Gangs of teenagers, often in matching shirts, ride around in the back of pick-up trucks throwing water at people in other vehicles and on the street.

The people on the street, with a ready supply of water are soaking everyone in sight and sometimes retaliating against the vehicles with talcum powder or ash, which makes for a messy day. (Notice the white puff in the picture below.)

But it’s not just for the teenagers; people of all ages get in on the action.

Some people foolishly try to protect themselves with an umbrella, which makes them an even more tempting target…… but most people just take it (with a little cringing).

I myself was walking down the street, dry as could be, when I spied a group of about ten guys with large buckets. I realized that there was no one else on the street and they were waiting for a target. I started laughing because I knew what was coming and knew that there was nothing I could do about it. One of the guys walked out into the street, wished me a “Happy New Year”, and slowly poured the entire bucket of water over my head. Free shower, anyone? Luckily, I had my camera in a Ziploc bag. (They are actually very nice here about not soaking your camera.)

A Little Taste of Laos

I climbed the hill in the center of Luang Prabang today to get a view of the city. It is amazing to me how sparsely populated this city is, considering that it is the second largest city in the country. It gives you an idea about life in Laos. The country’s population is only 5.6 million and 75% of the population lives in rural areas.





On the way down the hill, I passed many Buddha images, but this reclining Buddha had the most serene face I think I have seen on a statue.

In the evening, Rebecca and I went to see a traditional dance performance. It was especially nice to see the generations collaborating; the teenagers performed the dancing and the older generation provided the music and singing.

Afterwards, we headed for the alley of street food vendors who had lost generator power, and were therefore working by candlelight.

I bought a whole fish on a stick and brought it over to the vegetarian street buffet to join Rebecca, who is a vegetarian. I am not sure how the rest of the vegetarians felt about having a fish at the table, but no sooner had I sat down then I had a feline friend sitting next to me crying the angriest, most desperate cry I have ever heard. Now tell me, what cat hangs out at the vegetarian buffet? Clearly not a smart one! Naturally, I was not going to feed this cat at the table, but after I finished, I made a small pile of scraps for him away from the food area. Sorry, Darwin.